Canepa: Chargers can't help being the Chargers

There was the Holy Roller. The Immaculate Reception. The Drive. And now, may we present to you, The Play.

Fourth and 29. Fourth and twenty-nine. Fourth and 29. 4th and 29. Fourth down and 29 yards to go. It’s conceivable there are 29 different ways to say it and not laugh like an idiot about the probable outcome.

What’s inconceivable is to actually convert fourth-and-29 the way the Ravens did here Sunday, with the game absolutely on the line, with a dump-off, give-up pass from Joe Flacco that tailback Ray Rice took through the Chargers’ bewildered defense for 30 — that’s right, thirty — yards. It led to a last-second field goal that turned the game into a 13-13 tie and eventually ended with another Justin Tucker field goal in overtime that gave Baltimore a 16-13 win.

The Chargers, now 4-7 and hoping to make the 2013 playoffs, did not deserve to win a game they basically controlled. They opened the fourth quarter with a 10-3 lead. They had sacked Flacco five times. They hadn’t turned the ball over. They didn’t have a punt blocked. They had this thing in their mitts.

But let’s not forget these are the Chargers, and even in their good years — not that long ago — when they had to stop the other guys in the fourth quarter, they more than likely were going to blow it. And this team now isn’t very good, the Ravens aren’t bad, so you figure it out.

This is San Diego’s MO. It has happened to the Chargers time and again. When forced to close, they can’t. They can stop the other team for 59 minutes. The other team is going to score. They aren’t good enough and haven’t been good enough to close defensively in a mighty long time — maybe since that stop in Pittsburgh at the end of the AFC Championship Game.

But this was just nuts. Suddenly Flacco, who couldn’t do much for three quarters, couldn’t miss. The Ravens converted one third down after the other. They scored a touchdown. Then came fourth-and-29, and the conversion brought the Ravens into field goal range with just under two minutes to play in regulation.

These are the Chargers of 2012. They tease for a moment and then walk away. Pee Wee teams do not allow fourth-and-29 conversions. Flacco looked down field, couldn’t find anyone deep, and just dumped it off to a talented back who did the rest while the entire Chargers defense made a Marx Brothers movie.

“Obviously, on fourth-and-29 we should have stopped them,” said beleaguered coach Norv Turner, who should have sprinted onto the field himself and tackled Rice (hey, by then, you knew a penalty wasn’t going to change the outcome).

“I’m the head coach, so obviously everything there was my responsibility. We didn’t play the play as well as we thought we could have.”

Of course you didn’t. Fourth and 29?

“We talked about the situation a great deal,” Norv continued, “and I thought we were in something that gave us a chance to keep them from getting a first down.”